Cross a cheese biscuit with angel food cake and you get Parmesan sour cream cupcakes. They’re buttery, airy, sticky and sugary on the edges, and they have a tang from Parmesan that works in a cupcake so much better than you would ever expect. If you like the combination of sweet and salty, this is a cupcake for you.

The Parmesan sour cream cake recipe came from Susan at LunaCafe. She was inspired to develop the recipe after trying Parmesan pound cake at Metrovino in Portland, Oregon. Susan had the following to say about her version of the Parmesan cake:

This is one of the most delectable butter cakes in my repertoire. It’s unlikely that anyone will detect the parmesan if not told in advance of its presence. It adds an extra something though that is irresistible (umami), and yes, possibly addictive.

After reading her description of the Parmesan cake, I had to turn it into cupcakes and share the recipe with you!

Parmesan Sour Cream Cupcake Recipe

As noted above, the cake recipe came from LunaCafe. I am printing it below with my notes, conversion to cupcakes, and my original raspberry whipped cream recipe.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, Parmesan, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed, cream the butter briefly until smooth. (If you don't have a stand mixer, don't despair. You can still make this recipe - just mix with whatever tool you have. Your cupcakes just might not end up quite as fluffy.)

Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the powdered sugar. Mix on medium speed for 5 full minutes, until the mixture is light in color and fluffy in texture.

With the mixer still on medium speed, slowly drizzle in the eggs, tablespoon by tablespoon. If the mixture begins to curdle, stop adding the eggs and increase the speed until batter is again creamy. Then decrease the speed and resume adding the eggs. Continue to cream, scraping the sides of the bowl a few times, until the mixture appears fluffy white, velvety, and increased in volume, about 3 minutes.(Note: "drizzling teaspoon by teaspoon" is how Susan put it. I bake with my toddler, who just dumps the whole egg in. My recipe came out fantastic. Maybe it would be better if I did it her way, but I always like to remind people not to stress too much about baking. Have fun!)

Stir in 1/4 of the flour mixture.

Add 1/3 of the sour cream, stirring until blended.

Repeat the procedure, alternating dry and liquid ingredients, ending with the final addition of flour.

Thank you for converting this recipe into a cupcake recipe. I’ll have to make it one of these days. Just got back from the market with all my ingredients to make Strawberry Cupcakes. I love your blog and super awesome recipes.

How is the frosting with this recipe. I am worried it might be to liquidy to pipe onto the cupcake (especially with the frozen raspberries). Do you have any advice? These cupcakes look yummy by the way =)!

I just made these. They are very good, easy to make and not a problem with the frosting, the only thing is that I ended up with 24 cupcakes and not 12… Am I suppose to fill the cupcake liners all the way up?

These were great! I really enjoy the pairing with the raspberry frosting. The only problem I had was that the Parmesan cheese seemed to clump together in the cupcake once it baked… perhaps you need high quality parm? anyone else have this problem?

I made these last night, and got mixed reviews. My main problem is that apparently my store no longer sells grated Parmesan, so I ended up using shredded. The taste was unique, but not exactly what I expected.